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Those Pre-Race Jitters

22 Feb

Tomorrow morning at 4:45am a car, driven by the awesome Leo, will come pick me up to take me to John F. Kennedy International Airport for my 6:50 flight to New Orleans.  I will arrive a few hours later in the Big Easy for my fourth time, and only the third time I’ll make the trip by plane.  At exactly this time last year I was leaving New York by car.  With me behind the wheel and two friends, a cat, a disco ball, and a life-size cardboard cutout of R2D2 taking up the backseat of a rental car with Tennessee plates (glad to avoid New York plates on a drive through the south!) we set off from New York City to New Orleans, by way of about a dozen different states, to set a friend up in her new apartment in her new city to start a new chapter of her life.  It was a fun ride followed by a fantastic few days of exploring a new town and then a great 13.1 miles through a city I knew I would be visiting yearly, if not more.  I had no expectations of that race considering I had spent the better part of the previous week either sitting in a car, sitting in a bar, or exploring every inch of New Orleans by foot.  It turned out better than I had expected.  It was my best time in a half marathon up until that point, my best time, that is, until I bettered it by almost 6 minutes about 3 months later in the Brooklyn Half on a gorgeous day in May.  2012 was my year (for running)!

As I was saying, tomorrow morning I will be en route to New Orleans, about 24 hours after I fell asleep this morning following an 8-hour shift behind the bar.  I will arrive in the city at around 9:30am to the expectant faces of two of my closest girlfriends — one of whom keeps an awesome blog and came in 4th among women in the New Orleans Marathon a few years back (and she didn’t even have a great race! Asthma attacks! Who does that?!) and the other who busies herself bartending, making jewelry, doing investigations, practicing Reiki, and trying to turn herself into a glitter unicorn, she is so close.  I’ll spend the day at the Marathon Expo and catching up with my girls before my third night of minimal sleep leads into a 13.1 mile run, once again through the streets of New Orleans.  I have to say, I am a little nervous.  As I sit here thinking about the upcoming race, I can’t help but focus on all the potential negatives. I can’t help but pressure myself a little bit to better my time from last year, to try and set another personal record.  But then there are those nagging concerns.  So now I am thinking if I mention them here, to you, I can release them and just go into the race with a clear mind the way I have entered all my other successful running experiences.  The way I have always managed to have the most fun.  So, here goes.

1.  My training has really not been the best.  As I think I might have mentioned in this post about a run I took with Ira Glass (sorta), I originally planned on running the full marathon.  I even got through a few 18-20 mile runs.  The thing was, none of them felt all that good.  There was always something.  Three colds; hands that wouldn’t warm up even when I stopped on the side of the road, crouched down on the floor and stuck them in my armpits (I did this, don’t mock me); hips that ached with every step.  All this happened, I know, because I was lazy about doing speed work and strength training.  Did I do something about it?  No, obviously not.  My last super long run was meant to be 20 miles long.  About 12 miles in, my body and my brain had had it.  I called it quits.  It was then that I decided to drop down to the half.  It was, overall, a bad training cycle.  Never the best thing to ease a mind.

2.  I bought new shoes and they hurt.  They are the same models as my old ones and, added bonus, they look really cool!  Bright blue and green!  You can see me from miles away!  My first few runs they felt good, albeit a little stiff, but that’s normal for Mizunos in my experience.  But then after an 8 mile run last week, when I was running the downhill stretch to my house, I felt this super uncomfortable feeling on my right ankle bump (learned that term in anatomy class).  It hurt!  And now it hurts every time I run in them.  It’s too late to buy new shoes so what do I do?  Risk injury by wearing a pair of shoes that already have about 300 miles too many on them or risk bruising the shit out of my ankle bump and having an uncomfortable race?  You’ll be able to find me stuck over there, right between a rock and a hard place.

3.  I think my period is about to start and I am pretty sure the heaviest day is going to be the day of the race.  I won’t go into that.  Just read about it here.

But then there are some really good things!

1.  My running friend, C, is probably going to run with me and we will talk through the whole thing, leading to a slower time but a higher quotient of fun!

2.  Music!  Brass bands!  Other kinds of bands!  All along the route!

3. Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan are running it.  C. and I plan on stalking them down and making them be friends with us.  And then we will all be buddies and we will run together, only Kara and Shalane will be fastest, C. will be almost keeping up with them, and I will be bringing up the rear with my hands in my armpits like an asshole but then we’ll all make jokes about it and it will be great.

4. After the race, regardless of my time, I will take a shower, wash my hair and then drink the biggest bloody mary that New Orleans has to offer.  I have very high expectations for this.

5.  For the glorious week following the race, I will not set foot behind a bar.  In a bar?  Yes.  At a bar?  Yes.  Behind a bar?  Oh, hell no.

6.  When I get back to New York on Saturday, March 2nd it is only 24 hours until the AT&T American Cup, the first big elite gymnastics meet of the 2013 season.  Don’t get me wrong, I could do without Tim Daggett, Elfi Schlegel,  Andrea Joyce, and Al Trautwig’s overuse of the words “catastrophic” and “phenomenal” and I will be writing a letter to NBC telling them to get rid of one of those clowns and hire Alicia Sacramone because she rocks.  Those things aside, I will watch that meet and I will love every second of it.

Oh, hey, look at that. Three bad things, six good things. And those were just the good things that went directly from brain to fingers to keyboard.  I bet I could even think of more if I didn’t have to start packing. (Fingers crossed I don’t forget something important like a sports bra.  That would go into the list of bad things.)  So, okay, my training didn’t go great, I’ll probably be bleeding and I have uncomfortable shoes.  People have run through worse.  I think it will be fine.  And if it isn’t?  I’ll just have to have TWO ginormous* bloody marys.

*Totally didn’t know that was actually a word.  Another wonderful addition by us Americans, no doubt

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Dog Shit Doesn’t Melt and Other Observations

11 Feb

I remember when I was little growing up in New Jersey whenever it snowed my best friend and I would each lie awake in bed, awaiting that early morning phone call and the tired voice of the class parent reporting

“No school today.”

We loved it so much, in fact, that to this day whenever there is a snow event we send each other text messages with the beloved phrase, partially for laughs and partially wishing that life were still like that, that a snow day meant a day free from responsibilities and open to sledding, snow angels and igloos. She is a teacher now so for her the snow day still holds a little magic and allure but for me, there is no such thing as a snow day. Just frustrating white powder all over the ground that is only magical until the first dog pees in it. I do not like snow in the city. Part of the reason why I do not like snow in the city is because people are assholes. Let me explain.

It is commonly held knowledge that snow, when the temperature rises above freezing, will begin to melt. It might leave puddles in its wake but the cold white substance that used to litter the ground will be no more. What seems to not be commonly held knowledge, unfortunately, is that just because snow melts, and just because you can leave things in the snow, does not mean that those things also melt. In fact, they do not melt. They may change shape or structure, but they still remain. Your hamburger? Still there. Cigarette butt? Still there. Dog crap? Yup, also still there.

Okay, so in my mind one of the things that you agree to when you decide to get a dog is that you have to follow that dog around with little bags and pick its poop up off the floor so that some unsuspecting person doesn’t step in it. You do not then tie the bag and drop it on the floor like some people do (I have never understood this). No, you tie the bag up and you deposit it and its contents in the closest garbage can to be properly disposed of, far away from the sneakers and sandals of your neighbors. Another thing you agree to is that you have to take that dog out in all kinds of weather unless of course you have one of those small stupid dogs that craps on a pad in your bathroom in which case you might as well just get a cat, at least they go in a covered box.  On a normal sunny day, people in my neighborhood tend to be relatively good about cleaning up after their dog, save the errant pile here and there.  (Oh, and to the person on my street whose dog has the runs all the time, I have two things to say: (1) take that dog to the vet, there is obviously something wrong with it and don’t bitch about it being inconvenient because there is a vet at the bottom of the street and (2) just because the shit is runny doesn’t mean you don’t have to pick it up.  As far as I can tell the bags will protect your precious hands from both runny and solid poo.)  During the snow, however, people constantly leave dog poo behind, perched atop the mounds of snow littering the sidewalks.  People, that dog shit does not melt.  As the snow melts away, the dog shit just sort of moves around, breaks down, and becomes these exceedingly unsavory brown stains with chunks here and there.  And you know what?  Despite the fact that the shit is not a neat little pile like it once was, it still stinks.  And you know what else?  It is actually easier to step in now that it has spread across the entire sidewalk.  And you know who inevitably steps in it?  Me.  I do.  Every fucking time.  So please, people, I am begging you.  Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night should stay you from cleaning up after your goddamn canine.

And now for some more, slightly less involved, observations and pieces of advise:

1. Rain boots with holes in the bottom are not good to wear in inclement weather.  You know what is better?  Basically any other shoe, preferably water proof, without holes in the bottom.

2. It is very important to actually know your gym lock code before you close all your belongings inside a small locker and go take a shower, returning with only the small, hand-towel sized piece of fabric to cover your entire body.  Because you know what is not awesome?  Crouching down on the floor entering in every possible combination of numbers you can remember in a frantic effort to free your clothes.  Also, not awesome?  Having to send the cleaning lady (who is incredibly nice and accommodating and only sort of laughs at you) from the locker room up to the front desk to get a young women who can’t weigh more than 105 pounds to try and break your lock with a giant pair of pliers because, as it turns out, she is not strong enough to break the lock open.  You know what is awesome and not awesome at the same time?  Having your lock magically pop open from the pressure, resulting in a moment of happiness and also a moment of worry that you are either (a) stupid and actually managed to get the code right but just didn’t pull the lock down hard enough to open it or (b) have been trusting a faulty lock with the protection of your computer which has all of your school work, including the beginnings of you thesis, saved on it.  Not that any of this happened to me this morning.

3. If you notice a feather sticking out of your down coat, don’t pull it out.  There are only more feathers behind it that will also begin to stick through the ever-growing hole that you are making in your coat by yanking on the feathers and before you know it there are feathers everywhere.  As it turns out, and this is something I never would have thought,  people on the train and on the train platform do not appreciate having feathers fly all through the air and then land on their clothes and in their hair.  They think it is weird and kind of gross and they give you dirty looks.

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Some People are Super Weird About Their Dogs

4 Feb

I would like to preface this post by saying that I like dogs just as much as the next gal.  I had this really cute little guy named Buckwheat when I was growing up and I loved him.  Well, I loved him until he got a tumor in his head that was pressing on the personality part of his brain and he subsequently went from loveable and stupid to menacing and growly basically over night.  I guess I still loved him, but I loved him more at arms length than up close.  Anyway, I like dogs.  Dogs are nice.  I have some dogs that I like better than other dogs.  My friend Liz has a really nice dog.  Also, Monica’s dog.  Those are good dogs.  You know what?  I don’t even know why I am talking about dogs because this is actually more a post about dog owners than it is about dogs.  And really only about certain dog owners.  Okay.

So today I was walking to the train to go to my friend Dee’s house to do some school work.  I decided to pop into a cafe and grab a cup of coffee.  When I got about a block away from the cafe this father-daughter duo made a left off of a side street onto 4th Avenue.  The girl was little, probably like 3 years old, and she had a monster cough.  Also, she was talking about how she was cold.  I caught up with them and as I passed them I noticed that the dad was holding something under his jacket.  I figured this something was another child.  Upon closer inspection I came to realize that what he had nestled inside of his coat was a small dog.  That’s weird, right?  I mean, this man had a choice.  He has a cold and cough-y little daughter, and he has a small dog.  He certainly can’t fit both of them in his jacket.  So he thought to himself,

“I am worried about my small dog’s precious little feet and so I am going to allow my daughter to face the elements while I protect this animal that is essentially WEARING A FUR COAT from the wind.”

That seems like someone who maybe should check his priorities to me.  Also, if I were that little girl I would totally hate that dog because it is obvious that her dad loves the dog more than her.  I hope he is putting away money for her future therapy.

And then this other thing I have been seeing a lot of recently.  Strollers for dogs.  That’s right.  Strollers for dogs.  I was walking up 6th Avenue on my way to the library when I saw this woman with this pretty wide blue stroller thing that was taking up way too much of the sidewalk.  Something about the stroller seemed weird to me and then I realized it was because it was less of a traditional stroller and more of a mesh cage on wheels with all these pink squishy pillows inside of it and a dog looking around.  So there are a few things I have to say about this.  Who the hell buys a stroller for their dog?  Also, how did this woman walk down the street, taking herself and her life seriously, while pushing her dog in a stroller like a weirdo?  And finally, I am pretty sure that the point of strollers is so that when you have small children who either can’t walk yet or can’t walk quickly, you can make your life easier by putting them in the stroller and pushing them around while you go about your day.  The point here being that without the stroller, you would either have to carry your child or else walk super slow at kind of an odd angle because you are trying to hold your kid’s hand and your kid is small.  Seems like back pain in the making to me.  But strollers to me don’t look like things that I would particularly enjoy pushing around.  They are kind of big, they sometimes don’t maneuver well, they have to be carried up and down stairs, other people find them annoying especially when they are those obnoxious double-wide things that take up all of the space in the world.  Strollers are not great, but they make a pretty inconvenient thing – doing stuff with a person with short legs and a shorter attention span – easier.  Dogs, though, can walk.  And, actually, they can walk quite quickly.  They basically can walk like, right out of the womb.  They are born, their mom gets the goo off, and then they walk around.  There’s no stopping them!  So why would you make something that is pretty easy – walking around the city with a furry animal that also walks – more difficult by putting said animal in a stroller and then pushing the stroller?  The dog can walk!  The dog probably likes walking!  Why are you pushing it in a stroller?!  Unnecessary.

And then this one other thing that I don’t have a tirade about just a lot of confusion.  So, there is this lady who I see walking her dogs and one of her dogs has this contraption on it that sort of looks like what I imagine a pack mule would wear.  It is bright orange (for easy seeing?) and it has these little pockets on the sides where I assume one can put things.  Only the lady also has a bag with, I would imagine, things in it.  So what is this contraption?  And what is inside of it?  One day I am going to ask her.

So yea.  People are weird about their dogs.   Also, they spend a lot of money on buying their dogs things that the dogs could really care less about.  Basically, the dog wants to chew a bone, eat some snacks, poo, run around, piss on a tree, and smell your crotch or the butt of another dog.  That’s it.  It’s an easy life.  So just let the dog be a dog and stop being weird and acting like the thing can’t walk around on its own.  Also, don’t pull a Leona Helmsley and leave a $12 million trust fund for your dog.

The end.

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Sometimes I Feel Like the Joke is on Me

29 Jan

To my squeamish readers:  I am about to write about my period.  So if you are too immature to handle it, stop reading now.  But probably don’t tell me that because next time I see or speak to you I will mock you.  That is a promise.

Sometimes I think my period is a cosmic joke.  Or, I guess, sometimes I hope it’s a cosmic joke because then I can assume that someone, somewhere is finding it funny because I most certainly am not.  Ever.  (When I figure out who is laughing at my pain there will be hell to pay!)

Mostly the whole thing just sucks.

My period has always been heavy and long.  Right when I think it couldn’t possibly get heavier or longer, it does.  It plays tricks on me.  For days before it actually starts, it pretends like it is starting.  A little blood here, a little blood there and then suddenly BAM!  There it is.  There it is and there it stays for the next 6-7 days of torture.  And then maybe it doesn’t completely go away for another day or so, just to twist the knife a little.  My period, in short, is a jerk.

So today, day 4, my period was like

“yea, I think basically I have finished depleting you of 50% of your blood so I’m gonna slow my roll a little.”

In response I decided to follow the directions in my box of tampons which instructs me, in roughly these words, to just use the smallest absorbancy tampon that is appropriate for my flow.  Okay.  I assessed and I downgraded.  And what happens?  My period gets heavier.  It’s as if it knows.  It’s all,

“Psych! You think I would let you get away without ruining any of your underwear?  Without staining any of your jeans?  Well, wait till you get a load of this!”

ZOOM!

Inevitably, this happened when I was out running errands.  There I was, in the pet store, looking for cat food when all of a sudden I thought to myself,

“Wait, is that…?  Is it…? Oh you have got to be kidding me!”

Quick!  Pay for the food!  Stop making that weird face!  Don’t walk like you have a pole shoved up your ass!  Just walk quickly and calmly back to the house.  It can smell your fear and it will fuck with you.

Luckily I made it with limited muss and fuss but with an extreme amount of resentment directed at my period.  It’s as if it’s a highly competitive athlete that wants to outdo its last performance.  Like my period and I are on different teams and it takes my handling of it as motivation to do better next time.  Go big or go home, it thinks.

Recently, it’s decided that the heavy bleeding is not quite enough so it’s added cramps.  Bad ones.  I mean, not so bad that I can’t get out of bed in the morning, but bad enough that when I am standing up, I can feel my lower abdomen throbbing and the only way to deal with it is to bend at the hip at about a 60 degree angle.  I know that’s the best way to deal with it because my cramp day always, 100% of the time, comes when I am working, and I work on my feet so I get a good amount of practice.  I only work 3 days a week and I generally only have one day of cramps but that day always, always, always falls on one of my three days behind the bar.  So there I am, conspicuously leaning on the bar and grimacing.  I’m sure I make a very welcoming impression on customers.  Sometimes I want to look at people and be like

“I don’t usually stand like this!  Or make this face!  It’s not my fault!  I am dying of blood loss!”

But that would be weird and would probably scare a lot of people away.  So I just take more Advil.

One thing I can say about my period, although don’t tell it I said this because then it will somehow change its stripes, is that it doesn’t really effect my mood all that much.  I don’t become any more bitchy or snarky or quick-tempered than I usually am.  I also don’t become terribly emotional.  I suffer alone and in silence.

At least one time during the week of uterin-purging I think to myself,

“If there was a god, he* wouldn’t let this suffering continue.”

But then I realize that no, he probably would, because he wouldn’t get it.  He’d be thinking that he had to deal with having a random erection during heath class or the time his voice changed in the middle of his 7th grade presentation of Lord of the Flies.  He’d be thinking that anyone can deal with a little bit of blood every once in a while.  He’d be thinking that we ladies get to experience the miracle of childbirth.  Well, god, if you’re really there, I would like to refer you to the UberFact I read the other day that said

“Giving birth is the second most painful thing a human can experience — the first is being burned alive.”

Miracle of childbirth my ass.  So god, if you’re there and you’re laughing, if you find this funny, I will hunt you down and kick you in the nuts.  We’ll see who’s laughing then.

*I use the pronoun “he” because if god were a woman, this shit never would have happened in the first place.  She would have been like

“Bleeding for days on end?  Cramps?  Mood swings?  Water retention?  Oh, hell no.”

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Champage Wishes and Peanut Butter Dreams

14 Jan

I’ll admit it.  I have a peanut butter problem.  I’ve had it my entire life.  When I was little I started off eating apples and peanut butter.  I would put a huge mound of peanut butter on my plate, and then use the apple slices as a conduit.  I would dip my apple in, taking tiny bites of the flesh adorned with piles of the delicious butter.  Eventually, I just took to licking the peanut butter off, and then reluctantly eating the apple so as not to give myself away.  I then progressed to the tablespoon technique.  I would walk into the kitchen after a tough afternoon of playing outside and, using a spoon that was roughly the size of my mouth, would eat peanut butter like ice cream, savoring every bite.  It wasn’t refreshing.  Instead it left me with what my family always called “baby mouth,” the overwhelming desire to drink a glass of milk to wash the stubborn food down without leaving sticky remnants on my tongue and in my throat.  (“Baby mouth” was also a common diagnosis following the consumption of an especially rich cookie or brownie.)  Unfortunately for me I never enjoyed milk so the non-dairy alternatives my mom kept around, which didn’t exactly do the trick, often had to be a sub-par stand in.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches hold the jelly were my lunch of choice.  Luckily for me I was active — I did gymnastics and was a fan of playing escape games, imagining my swings as horses, aiding me in my flight from an evil school teacher — so the peanut butter never really had a negative impact.

And then I went to college.  I specifically remember one afternoon during my sophomore year, after going for a short run and in the middle of studying for midterms, when I stress ate what had to be 1/3 a jar of Skippy.  I didn’t realize what I was doing until halfway through my Spanish flashcards when I looked down and noticed the giant canyon in my peanut butter.  Whoops.  I tried to rectify the situation by dancing furiously to an entire Eminem album which then left me, post peanut butter binge fest, with a pretty epic stomach ache.  I took a break from the sticky snack for awhile.

Then, during my junior year abroad, I made it a sort of game to try and locate peanut butter in every exotic location I found myself.  I had always thought peanut butter was an international treat but, as it turned out, people regarded the American’s love of peanut butter with much the the same combination of curiosity and disgust that I associate with the consumption of Vegemite.  Also, being an import, a small tub of Skippy or Jiff could easily run you $8 in small town Dahanu, India or city like Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, a price tag that seems off-putting, especially when set in the context of an academic program that preached the benefits of locally produced food and decreased globalization.

My peanut butter habit, although abandoned for a time following my international adventures, came back with a vengeance a few years ago.  I could easily go through a jar in less than the 14 days it should take a person to consume its entirety if based on the advertised serving size.  A tablespoon is really very small, as it turns out.  Or at least, it’s small when it comes to peanut butter.  So, given my slowing metabolism, I decided about a year ago to try and not keep peanut butter in the house most of the time.  Sometimes I cave, “needing it for a recipe,” and then it doesn’t last long, but for the most part I can steer clear.  For the most part, I don’t really miss it.  Except recently.

This past week I have had not one, but two dreams featuring peanut butter.  Two dreams, two nights in a row.  In the first dream I walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet where my two roommates keep their food, and discovered a jar of Peter Pan.  Yum!  I grabbed a spoon and took a bite, just a little one, hoping my roommate wouldn’t discover the missing butter.  But then I got carried away.  I ate and ate and ate and all of a sudden the jar was half empty!  In a panic, and instead of doing the logical thing of placing that jar in my cabinet and buying a replacement for my roommate, I took the jar into my room and hid it in the back of my underwear drawer.  And then I woke up, insanely thirsty.

In the second dream, I was at a Very Important Meeting with some Very Important People.  The meeting took place in a large office with a huge, rectangular conference table in the middle.  The table was full of people with computers, reviewing boring Power Point presentations (because that is what I imagine happens at meetings, apparently).  I was the only one not looking at a computer.  Instead, I sat at my seat, peanut butter and spoon in hand, snacking away until one of my co-workers said, with  snort, “I’m allergic to peanut butter!  Get it away from me!”  At which point I took my spoon, my peanut butter and myself and moved to the corner, where I quietly ate for the remainder of the meeting.

The end.

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For Papa, Three Years Later

11 Jan

This is actually something that I wrote in January of 2010 and that I read three years ago tomorrow, on what was that year a Tuesday.  It is the eulogy for my grandpa, who all us grandchildren lovingly called Papa, who had passed away a few days earlier, on the 9th of January, if memory serves.  It’s meant to be funny, because that’s how the Franks do it.  Mostly it’s only funny to those who have spent time with us and around us.  So, here it is.  (It’s pretty much in its original form, so forgive me.)  I toyed with the idea of adding an addendum at the end, but maybe that’s a story for another day.  Enjoy.

“I was really hoping I would get to give this little speech before my dad because I don’t know that I can follow another crowd pleaser like his famous Nanny-food eulogy but here goes.

“To me, Papa was perfect.  He always seemed so tall, and never more than at our Passover Seder every year when he would sit at the head of the table, surveying the family.  I don’t know who around here has attended a Frank family Passover, but there is basically nothing like it.  Papa would sit there with his Hagada, copyright 1952, marked with countless brisket and sweet potato pie stains, and lead the Seder.  With a somber expression, he would read his part while the rest of us, in true Frank fashion, would erupt in little jingles about karpas, morror, and kasha varnishkas.  Papa would wait until we ran out of steam, which we eventually would, and he would pick right back up where he left off.  Well, until the next time someone noticed karpas and the whole thing started all over again.  He never got angry, or at least not visibly so.  He just sat there with a twinkle in his eye.  I knew how important Judaism was to him and I never understood why he would let us carry on like that on one of the most important days of the year.  I realized this past year, our last Passover together, that it was less about Judaism and more about family.  The Seder was important to him, so we all came together and did it, and enjoyed it, and made it our own.  More than that, though, is the fact that we were important to him.  So rather than joining in all our hijinks, he just sat, watched, and took it all in.

“I kept all that in mind last Wednesday when I rushed home from Brooklyn to see Papa after he came home from the hospital.  The second I walked in the room, expecting to find Papa physically but not mentally, I caught his eyes and they immediately lit up.  He told me how wonderful I looked, I told him how wonderful he looked.  He rolled his eyes and said something I dare not repeat in synagogue.  I sat down and he started asking me about the paper I just sent in — he agreed that Monsanto should be put out of business — about the race I was about to run — he was convinced I was going to win — and about the summer programs I am applying to — he thought I should not build dry-latrines in Haiti (too dangerous).  He then went on to tell me that he found some of Lucy’s poems on his computer and that she’s really good.  That Milo can really play ball and he’s going to make it (I agreed on both counts).  Then he decided he wanted a bowl of Rice Krispies.  The nurse had told me he couldn’t get out of bed, that he wasn’t strong enough.  But all of you knew Papa, and he looked at me and said “Come on, Bekah, let’s get some cereal.”  And even though intellectually I knew he couldn’t stand and walk on his own, in one look he had me convinced.  I was sure he was going to get up, put on his slippers and get himself a bowl of Rice Krispies.  And that was Papa, determined and strong and never defeated.”

Thanks for the company, Ira Glass

8 Jan

An ex-boyfriend of mine (I say that as if they number in the dozens) used to hate the sound of Ira Glass’ voice.  I imagine he still does.  The radio in his car was always tuned to NPR and whenever Ira Glass and This American Life would come on, my ex would let out a quiet groan and quickly shut the radio off.  I always imagined it was because, on top of being a bartender, he was a voice over actor and so he was especially critical of the voices of others.  He was allowed, I suppose, having an exceedingly nice voice himself.  As a result of his quiet disdain, I never really listened to Ira Glass, I always just took this dislike of his voice as a given.  Until I didn’t.  Ironically, Ira Glass does not have a voice for radio.  His voice is odd, not really low and not really high.  His words seem to come from farther back in his mouth than most and it almost sounds as if the very back of his tongue is touching the roof of his mouth when he utters certain sounds — such as the “gla” noise present in his own last name — making it sound as if, for lack of a better description, he is swallowing them.  It makes him identifiable, if nothing else.  Over time I have grown to really like it.

This morning I set out on a long run.  Sixteen and a half miles is a long way to go and, whenever I set out for one of these long ones, I always think back to my 16-year-old self who used to dread the timed two mile run we had to do in order to get on the field hockey team.  The required 8-minute per mile pace required, a seemingly insurmountable goal at the time, is now not so scary.  The 16.5 miles, however, takes about as much mental cheer leading as you might imagine.  I mapped out my route.  A lap around Sunset Park, around Greenwood Cemetery to Fort Hamilton Parkway and then onward for 3 loops of Prospect Park, plus a little extra, ending up at the gym to force myself to stretch.  Normally I run without audio accompaniment, letting my mind wander to all sort of fun and interesting places.  But today I had this feeling that mental amusements simply weren’t going to cut it.  Cue Ira and This American Life.

I headed south on 5th Avenue, listening to the story of an NPR staff member who, despite his allergy of crab and lobster, eats one or the other about 3 times a year.  The poisoning himself, he says “isn’t so bad.”  I imagined along with the narrator what he must look like with his cheeks puffed out and his eyes mere slits due to all the swelling.  I even acted it out, much to the wonder of those I ran by.  I then listened to the story of Cardinals pitcher Steve Blass who was cursed with his namesake, Steve Blass disease, leaving him unable to pitch a successful game.  It got me thinking about myself as an athlete and how, when I start focusing on my breathing, it becomes heavier, more labored.  Best to not think about it, This American Life advised.  But of course by that time I had already started.  I made it to the park while listening to a fictional story put on by “The Truth,” with the descriptor “movies for your ears.”  What a perfect companion going into my 5th and 6th miles.

The next episode starred Mike Birbiglia with his story of a hit and run accident in which he was hit, and, although the other person ran, he got stuck with the other man’s $12,000 repair bill due to police ineptitude.  This story, although a very frustrating experience I am certain, was so incredibly funny that I had to mask my laughter with coughing fits as to not come across as a crazy person to those around me.  It made breathing slightly difficult, and people gave me the side eye anyway, but the next few miles flew by as I waited to say what hilarious injustice would befall Mike next.  I sailed through an online musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, by Joss Whedon starring the loveable “triple threat” Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible.  And then came a reading by Dan Savage about his relationship with Catholicism and the loss of his mother.  Unfortunately for me I decided to take my Gu at exactly the moment when Savage nearly broke down while recounting the horrible moment in Tucson, Arizona when he found out his mother would die that day of pulmonary fibrosis.  Gu coated my throat and I made a sort of wheezing sound whenever I tried to breath, which was often since I was something like 11 miles into my run at that point.  I thought I was probably going to either suffocate or get Gu in my lungs which would have been ironic given the subject matter at that particular moment.  I didn’t do either of those things.  Water seemed to clear the problem right up but that was the third time I managed to draw attention to myself while running.

Nearing the end of my run I was joined by Dave Sedaris as he recounted the many pets his family had when he was a kid and how, after he and his 5 siblings had grown and left, his parents replaced them with a Great Dane named Melinda.  He discussed other pets he had throughout his life, including his female cat, Neil, who was ill and needed to be put down.  When his vet asked him to think about euthanasia, he immediately imagined the “youth in Asia.”  In his words,

I hadn’t heard that word in a while and pictured scores of happy Japanese children spilling from the front door of their elementary school. “Are you thinking about it?” (the vet) asked.

“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

And again, I tried to muffle my laughter through heavy coughing.  At 14 miles, give or take, this was no easy feat.  I decided then and there that when the inevitable happens, and I have to put one of my beloved cats down, I too will imagine the “youth in Asia” so as to not have another complete breakdown in the vet’s office like the one I had circa 2004 when my cat Sassafras was ill.  I then moved on to thinking about the parents of funny people.  In Dan Savage and Dave Sedaris’ tales, their mothers were both incredibly funny.  Do all funny people have funny parents?  Or is it simply in the story-telling?  Or maybe a combination of the two?  This little thought adventure made me miss a little of the following story, about Steve Malarkey (real name!) and his creation, Video Catnip, a film for cats which I now want to buy.  I made it to the gym while in the midst of a fictional story about an armadillo.  I didn’t make it through the whole thing because, wouldn’t you know it, my iPod Nano ran out of juice right as I sat down to stretch.

So, thank you, Ira Glass.  That was fun.

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Merry Christmas, Mima

25 Dec

For as long as I remember, on Christmas Eve morning my parents, my two siblings and I would pile into whatever car my dad happened to be driving at the time (except for when he and I went out car shopping together in which case we always returned home with some completely impractical 2-seat convertible, meaning we would have to take my mom’s Saab for the trip because my mom has basically always driven a Saab) and head up north to New Salem, New York to celebrate Christmas with the Wehren half of the family.  My dad would drive, my mom would be in the passenger seat, and my sister Lucy and I would take our turn at the dreaded middle seat.  (Aaron never had to sit in the middle because he was “older and taller,” whatever, so unfair.)  The trunk would be full of suitcases and neatly wrapped presents.  My mom is excellent at wrapping presents.  We’re talking crisp corners, multi-colored ribbons which were often times the ones that if you dragged the sharp edge of the scissor over they would end up all curly like a pig’s tail, and cool cards always signed, in my mom’s unique handwriting, Love; Mom and Dad although my Dad did none of the shopping and basically was just as surprised as we were by the contents of each of the boxes.  Inevitably, on the seemingly arduous ride up (it was only 2 1/2 hours, a walk in the park by my post-India travel adventures but seemed like forever when I was 8) we would stop at the Sloatsburg Travel Plaza off the New York Thruway for some Burger King and Sbarro.  My dad always got a stomach ache.  And then it was back on the road.

Once we got off the highway at our destination, we would wind our way through Voorheesville and New Salem.  For most of the time we went up there, the town only had one stop light so it was pretty much smooth sailing.  We would drive past the two houses where I have this vague memory of a story I was told about two teenage kids, some phone calls and a police visit; we would drive past the high school and the police station; past the Smitty’s and the middle school with it’s fancy wooden playground and then arrive at my grandma, Mima’s, little house behind a bigger house, about 6 houses down on the left.  (My uncle Pat used to live in the front house.  As a little kid I was pretty afraid of Pat and his house because he always wore army clothes, never smiled, and basically kept the lights in the house off at all times.)  Sometimes Mima would  hear us coming up the driveway and would meet us out front and sometimes not, but we knew she was home waiting.  As we got older we would grab what we could and make our way in, but as little kids we would barrel into the house always making sure to close the outer door before opening the inner one so as not to allow Something, Mima’s rather sassy cat, to escape.  The rest of the afternoon and evening was full of tree decorating, eating the candy Mima always kept around but couldn’t eat (she was diabetic) and lots of talking.  Lucy could usually be found in the corner reading a book.  We gave Mima a new ornament yearly, and we always, always, got to open one present on Christmas Eve.  When I was younger, I would pick one that looked like a book and leave the bigger and oddly shaped presents, the more exciting ones, for the next day.  I always loved those Christmas Eves.

After dinner the 5 of us would leave Mima and head back to the hotel for a good night sleep before we headed back to her house for a full day of Wehren-family fun.  When we got older, and after Uncle Pat passed away and my Aunt Vida moved into his house (she painted the walls colors and turned on the lights!) me, Aaron and Lucy would all sleep there, taking care to pack pajama layers because Vida basically doesn’t believe in turning the heat above 65 degrees.  Brr.  Christmas day was always full.  My cousin Jessica and I generally got matching sweaters.  I seem to remember one year we got matching red leggings and a sweater with a reindeer on it which we changed into immediately and wore around for the rest of the day.  We loved getting matching sweaters.  I think that stopped when we were about 11. There were gifts, there were stories, there were mashed potatoes, there was the inevitable argument among the Wehren siblings about religion, education and politics (they are all varying degrees of extremely liberal).  My dad always went back to the hotel to take a nap in the middle of the day.  I think it was all a little much for him.  The next morning we would all meet at a nearby diner for breakfast before we headed home to Jersey.  That was the typical Chirstmas.  But there were a few incidents that I will always remember.

There was the time when my cousin Jessica and I decided to go back to the hotel with my dad during his afternoon nap.  We wandered the halls, playing games, pretending someone was following us through the halls of the hotel.  We didn’t know what room he this mystery man was staying in but we knew he was after us.  At one point, riding the elevator from one floor to another, we got impatient and hit basically all the buttons.  We got stuck in the elevator for about ten minutes.  To this day elevators still make me uncomfortable.

Then there was the time, after Mima started getting sick so we moved Christmas dinner down the driveway to Vida’s house, when there was a lot of snow.  Like, a lot of snow.  So much snow that, when all the pipes froze due to the insane cold, we had to go outside and get snow to melt in order to wash the dishes.  Even though this was in the era when Lucy, Aaron and I normally stayed with Vida, my dad insisted we all stay in the hotel so he didn’t have to drive to pick us up in the morning and brave all the snow.  We headed out.  The snow was pretty deep and falling fast.  Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “I Like Big Butts” was playing on the radio.  My brother and I (I think this might have been the year Lucy was in Florence) were singing along at high volume.  My dad, deciding one road seemed to be a little more treacherous than he liked, decided to attempt a K-turn into a snow bank in the Saab.  Needless to say we got stuck.  Aaron and I kept singing.  My dad did not think it was funny.  I’m pretty sure my mom tried to stay neutral but was on our side.

The time (or was it times?) when Aaron would block my exit from the revolving door and I would go around and around and around, unable to enter the hotel if we were getting back, or leave the hotel if we were headed out.

Whether there was an event or not, it was always fun.  It got harder as we got older.  We all had our separate lives.  Aaron got married and started spending Christmas at my sister-in-law, Claire’s, house.  Lucy moved to Boston.  Mima got sick and could no longer really participate in conversations like she used to.  But it was always nice going up there.  Always nice to talk to Mima about what we had been up to.  I told her about my running, my studies, and my traveling.  She seemed to be proud and impressed no matter what I was up to which I find funny because Mima is basically one of the most impressive women ever.  Mima raised 6 kids by herself and managed to feed and clothe them all.  And keep a functioning house.  I don’t think Mima had very much fun but all the kids, in the end, turned out great.  Whenever I hear some politician comment on how single women are incapable of raising well-rounded children, I want to counter with the example of my grandmother.  The older I get, the more amazed by her I am.

This is my second Christmas staying in Brooklyn.  My second Christmas after Mima died.  And while it is nice to be home and avoid the holiday travel, I really do miss all five of us piling into that car, stopping unnecessarily on the way up, seeing the family we only got to see twice a year.  I miss decorating a tree with the same ornaments year after year.  I miss making fun of my dad for his Chirstmas afternoon nap.  I miss the matching sweaters.  Most of all, though, I miss Mima.  So, Mima, where ever you are, a very merry Christmas.  I miss you more today than the other 364.

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The Day I Sneezed the Loudest Sneeze

13 Dec

This one is for my friends Dee and Elizabeth.

I woke up this past Monday morning with a sore throat.  It wasn’t scratchy, as if I had been talking too much or too loudly the night before.  It was more a feeling of tightness.  It felt a little smaller, a little more constricted, than usual.  The classic precursor to a cold.  I spent that day in my room, intermittently reading the news and watching “Grey’s Anatomy,” from the beginning.  (Sometimes when I am sick, or think I might be getting sick, I try to torture the sickness out of me by watching marathons of some of the cheesier shows available.  A few years ago it was “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.”  I will never be the same.)  The day went along and my overall feeling of sickness stayed relatively the same.  I felt a little bit tired with that kind of naggingly tight throat and a very tickly, but not runny, nose.  Maybe this was it.  A lamb of a cold.

On Tuesday I woke up feeling more or less the same.  I, once again, forewent my run in an attempt to stave off the sickness a little bit longer or, hopefully, to avoid it all together.  I ate an orange because, you know, vitamin c.  Then I headed into the city to meet my friend Dee at the study center at our school to do some work, me on my thesis, which I am paying to write, and her on a cool project that she is getting paid for because she is smart and awesome and on top of her shit.  Go Dee!

The study center is a quiet place.  There was a group of rather rowdy Parson’s students behind us (aren’t the loud ones always from Parson’s?) who Dee and I thought should have used a study room rather than the study center to work on a group project that involved multi-media images and things.  Dee kept giving them the best nasty looks I have seen in years.  It was pretty classic.  We were working for hours, drinking too much coffee, eating Haribo peaches.  Through the entire afternoon I kept having this annoying tickle in my right nostril.  I kept plugging my nose and looking up at the light, hoping to keep the sneeze from bursting forth.  Then, all of a sudden, I got a super intense tickle and ACHOO!  It was, literally, the loudest sneeze I have ever sneezed in my entire life.  It sounded, as determined with help from my friend Elizabeth, much like a cruise ship horn, if, rather than being a soothing, 5-10 second long sound it came out, all at once, in a huge burst.  I looked around the silent study room to see a number of startled faces looking back at me.  I frantically looked at the floor, acting as if I had dropped a pen in hopes that people wouldn’t credit me with the heart attack-inducing sneeze.  I had to go to the bathroom to blow my nose and wash my hands, but I feared that if I left my seat right away the few people who didn’t know the sneeze was mine would soon come to realize I was the culprit.  I looked up at Dee.  She had an expression that communicated to me both shock and amusement.

“Excuse me.”

I whispered.  Although at that point I might have been better off screaming it.  About 2 minutes later, after touching nothing in an effort to not spread my sneeze-germs everywhere, (it was a dry sneeze, by the way), I quickly and quietly made my way to the bathroom to blow my nose and wash my hands.  And that, my friends, is the story of the loudest sneeze I ever sneezed.

In other news, I read this in The New Yorker while waiting for the train Pre-Loudest Sneeze and it made me laugh. You might like it too.

“(Grover) Norquist attributed the Presidential result to the Obama campaign’s success in portraying Romney as ‘a poopy-head.'”

No, seriously. And…that is all.

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Imagination Games Gone Sour

4 Dec

Disclaimer:  The blog to follow is in no way intended to belittle the tragedy that spawned the authoring of this particular post.  It is based on an actual fear that I have, however unlikely it is to come to fruition.  I choose to approach it semi-humorously because, in my experience, that’s usually a good way to approach things that are uncomfortable to talk about.  Also, I know that even though this fear sometimes comes true for some people and that is totally tragic and awful, it will likely not come true to me.  That, however, doesn’t mean that I (a) can’t still be worried about it and (b) can’t be sad for the people it actually happens to.  Disclaimer over.  Actual blog beginning.

Throughout this blog I have mentioned the imagination games that I play to pass the time.  I play them while I am running.  I play them when I think about winning the 550 million dollar Power Ball.  I play them pretty much all the time.  As I have gotten older, though, I have noticed that my imagination games have become slightly scarier, slightly more sinister.  They have become, as one of my old co-workers used to say, more akin to ill-fantasies than fun goals and aspirations.  Here’s an example.

When I used to play imagination games back in the day they always went like this.  I wrote this thing, said this thing, or did this thing that people thought was super great.  Then I became famous and people were talking about me enough that Ellen took notice and invited me on her show.  Then I would imagine whether or not I would have to pick my own clothes or Ellen’s dressing room people would help me think of something to wear because nothing, and I mean nothing in my closet is good enough to wear for an interview with Ellen.  Also, I don’t really know how to use make-up other than eye liner and mascara so I would wonder whether or not Ellen’s make-up people would help me with the other things that I might need to look good on camera.  You know, because in my imagination game I really would not want to have a shiny forehead.  Even though, for the record, shiny forehead is something I actually never worry about in real life.  OR!  I would write this thing or say this thing or do this thing that people thought was super great.  Then I would become famous and people would be talking about me enough that Larry King would notice and invite me on his show.  Then I wouldn’t worry about outfits or make-up or shiny forehead but would instead only wonder how much trouble I would get in if I were to lean over Larry’s desk thing and snap his suspenders.  It has been my dream to snap Larry King’s suspenders far longer than it has been my dream to be interviewed by Ellen.  But things have changed.

Now I have ill-fantasies as opposed to funny and neat fantasies.  One of my most reoccurring ill-fantasies is being pushed into the subway tracks by a stranger.  I don’t know exactly when this ill-fantasy started but it has been repeating itself for a few years now.  I will be waiting for the R train, looking down the tracks expectantly, seeing the progress of the train and all of a sudden

<BOOM!  ILL-FANTASY!>

A crazy person comes from behind me, shoves me on the back and I go tumbling onto the tracks.  In my ill-fantasy, that’s usually the end of the story although come to think of it sometimes I imagine the broken bones and the bleeding face but I always manage to scramble back out of the tracks before the train arrives.  In real life, as in the life that takes place outside of my mind, I look around the subway for crazies and slowly inch my way closer to the wall, safe from a random shove.

Now that I think back, I’m pretty sure it all started this one day when I was waiting for the R train and all of a sudden I saw this man in the darkness of the subway tracks.  He wasn’t on the tracks, he was to the side of the tracks, on the walkway set up for MTA employees.  He was thin, of average height, with a crazy head of blondish-brownish-grayish hair.  He came running down the side of the tracks, train horn blaring behind him as the conductor wondered whether the man would continue on the walkway or jump down onto the tracks without warning.  He ran and ran and then as he approached the divider between where straphangers wait and MTA employees walk he hurdled, like how Olympic athletes do, easily clearing the blockade and went running through the entire waiting area, with all the commuters taking a step back towards the wall to let him pass.  He then re-entered the walkway area on the other end of the subway station and continued on his way.  I’m pretty sure in those tense momenst as he made his way across the platform we were all thinking the same thing.  No one wanted to be shoved and if I were to imagine someone who was likely to shove someone randomly, it would be this man with the crazy hair and the vacant eyes that seemed as though they hadn’t seen the light of day in months.  Now on a weekly basis I have a moment of ill-fantasizing while waiting for the subway where I worry that I may or may not get shoved into the path of an oncoming train, or at least onto the empty tracks to be bruised, bloodied and bitten by rats.  Until yesterday I thought I was being crazy.  But then it happened to this guy.  And then!

I went online and I discovered that this is not the first time this has happened!  Last year I found out this other lady who is in the fashion industry in some capacity also got pushed onto the tracks!  Also by a stranger!  She broke some ribs and her lung got punctured and everything.  Not dead but I bet she doesn’t ride the subway anymore.  So, while I fully realize that the odds of me getting pushed down into the subway tracks are slightly better than me winning the 550 million dollar Power Ball, being interviewed by Ellen or snapping Larry King’s suspenders I am still nervous about it.

So for the foreseeable future, I will be the one hugging the wall of the subway station until the approaching train comes to a complete stop.

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